Ed Seeman

Seeman graduated from the The High School of Music & Art on 135th Street in New York City, focusing on both singing and art in his studies.

After gradation he worked as a singer in nightclubs and Broadway, and also at the Naponoch Country Club in the Catskills. He didn't stop there, but pursued work as an artist, initially creating advertisements for Alexander's, a New York department store. His career came into focus when he was hired at Paramount Pictures, learning the craft of cell animation.

While at Paramount he worked as an inbetweener, a position in which the artist completes the frames in a sequence, between start and end frames drawn by the animator. Another job he worked was as an opaquer on Popeye, painting the back of each frame to add color to the images before they were photographed.

Seeman worked, learning his craft on frames that went into Popeye the Sailorman and Casper the Friendly Ghost. His career was interrupted when Seeman was drafted into the U.S. Army.

United States Army

Three clips from the comic strip Pvt Goof Hoff, by Corporal Ed Seeman, at the time part of Headquarters, 4th Infantry Division, stationed in Germany.

Security adds from c.1953, from the 4th Infantry Division's Ivy Leaves newspaper, by Corporal Ed Seeman.

Book put together by Ed Seeman c. 1953, The Famous Fourth, 4th Infantry Division.

Seeman was drafted in the United States Army during the Korean War and served in Frankfurt am Mein, Germany in 1952-1954 with the 4th Infantry Division. While in the division's Headquarters, he served as an Information and Entertainment Non-Commissioned Officer, with the rank of corporal. While there he worked as an illustrator for the 4th Division's newspaper, Ivy Leaves, creating a comic strip, Pvt Goof Hoff (Private Goof Off), part of the Army's internal information program, by which information was distributed in an entertaining way. He also created security adds, designed to remind soldiers that they needed to be conscious of what they said around others in case an enemy was secretly gathering intelligence, a program labeled operations security (OPSEC) today. He also created a book, The Famous Fourth Infantry Division. At his reenlistment, the Army awarded him the Army Commendation Medal for his efforts. He won the "Pat on the Back" award, for the cartoon “A note has just been handed me” which shows a sergeant teaching a class, unaware that his pants are around his ankles; it was serious award for his profession showing merit.

Along with his business partner Ray Favata, also an animator, Seeman began the media company Gryphon Productions, which ran from about 1960 to 1969. They produced commercials using cartoon characters. The animations that were produced included Flintstones Fruity Pebbles, Sugar Crisp Cereal (with Sugar Bear), Hasbro Toys' Charmkins and Huggles (from the Great Space Coaster), and My Little Pony, among a much longer list that includes at least 20 different products that advertised using cartoons. After the company closed, Seeman and Favata continued to work together, producing advertisements in the 1970s and '80s.

Film techniques

Seeman branched out from animation in the late 1960s, experimenting with motion picture film techniques creating montages.

When he began to shoot the footage for Mothers of Invention Seeman shot footage in a documentary style .  He also created in-camera montages, rewinding the undeveloped film in his 16mm camera back so that new sequences overlapped onto previously shot imagery, producing multiple exposures.

Rather than planning out his shooting sequences, Seeman took advantage of what he calls “controlled accident”. Instead of looking on unplanned images as mistakes to be discarded, he looked at them artistically, and used them artistically as he edited his film. When the random double and triple exposures didn't produce the desired artistic composition Seeman carefully edited out the “accidents” and then completed the film by controlling what were accidental improvisations into a finished product that ”flows” in perfect unison, one with the other.

With his film "Dana and Clay" he shot film of two people dancing with one another, in the nude, artistically done and not explicit. The film was a "Cinedance", dance performed for film rather than for theater. Seeman used his multiple exposure technique to create the in-camera montages. One sequence shows a woman dancing in the center of the screen. Another has a man dancing behind her. A third  sequence has the two dancing on either side of the screen, facing one another.  Some sequences have the two dancing together. The images are superimposed over one another or beside, sharing the screen.

What makes Seeman's technique different is his willingness to not plan the sequences out ahead, but to use what happens through fortune. That applies to content and composition, but also to the film exposure. Unlike a planned photo shoot in which the photographer has to calculate be sure to not overexpose his film to light with the multiple filmings, Seeman shot each sequence on full exposure, with the idea it would be unlikely the images would superimpose to the extent to ruin the tones.

The lighting that he used resembles the technique called badger lighting, in which the lights are angled from behind, lighting the sides of the dancers and casting the middle of their bodies in shadow. The technique shows their bodies as outlined shapes, with some details such as muscles, skin and hair textures being revealed by shadow. In the beginning of the film, Clay and Dana were photographed this way in the center of the screen, with Dana smaller and in front, and Clay larger and behind, so that his outlined form framed hers. As the film progressed, the two were all over the screen, whirling and twisting. Groins were mostly in shadow.

Seeman's short films (both the art films and those made with Zappa) were made without sound. After the editing was done, music was chosen that would go with each film.

Film festival

• Frekoba", 1968, dancer Frances Alenikoff
• Dana and Clay, 1969, dancers Dana Wolfe and Clay Taliaferro
• High Contrast, 1969
• Space Oddities, 1970
• Incubus c. 1971, dancer Frances Alenikoff

Frank Zappa

• Electric Circus, c. 1967
• Rehearsal, c. 1967
• Sex, Paint and Sound, c. 1967
• Mothers of Invention,1968

Also known as:

• Uncle Meat (40-minute version)
• Frank Zappa and the Original Mothers of Invention, video cassette version of film, 1987
• The Real Uncle Meat
• Raw Meat
• Suzy Creamcheese What's Got Into You?

Seeman contributed motion picture photography for Frank Zappa's:

• The Burnt Weeny Sandwich (unpublished)
• Uncle Meat 14 hrs version (the footage of the Mothers of Invention) (parts of it were shown publicly, but the whole was unpublished)

As Eduardo Cemano, sex industry films

• Millie's Homecoming, 1971
• The Weirdos and the Oddballs (aka Zora Knows Best), 1971
• The Healers, 1972
• Fongaluli, 1972, also named Aphrodisiac and The Love Potion
• Madame Zenobia, 1973

Eduardo Cemano short films

• Blushing Nude
• Cucumber
• Floating Nudes